The use of electronic devices has become increasingly common in today's world. Examples of electronic devices include television (TV) sets, Digital Versatile Disk (DVD) players, audio players, security-monitoring devices, gaming consoles, and so forth. The operations of these electronic devices can be controlled by using control buttons that are located on the device. For example, a TV channel can be tuned by pushing a button on the TV set. This, however, requires a user of the electronic device to be present near the device, which is time-consuming and inconvenient when the device has to be operated frequently.
There are wireless handheld devices that can operate an electronic device from a remote location. Such wireless handheld devices can be TV remote control devices, wireless game pads, DVD player remote control devices, and so forth. For example, TV channels can be tuned by using a TV remote control device from a distance. Another example is a Bluetooth headset used with a mobile phone. Typically, such wireless handheld device use infrared-based or radio-frequency-based signals to communicate with these electronic devices.
However, to operate an infrared-based wireless handheld device, it has to be pointed in the direction of the receiver of the electronic device. For example, a TV set can be operated by an infrared-based remote control device by pointing the infrared-based remote control device towards the TV set. Further, radio-frequency-based wireless handheld devices do not need to be pointed in the direction of the electronic device. However, all the electronic devices that fall in the range of the radio-frequency-based device get operated simultaneously. If a particular device has to be operated, then the device has to be manually selected at radio-frequency-based wireless handheld devices by a user. This causes inconvenience to the users, especially when operation has to be performed frequently, for example, a user may have to change channels of a TV set frequently.
There are many such instances where electronic communication devices are intended to work together, but in order to do so, they must first be linked to each other in a process called pairing. Traditionally, pairing is a manual operation performed by either the end user of the electronic communication devices when they are first installing and configuring the devices, or during the manufacturing process of the devices. Therefore, there is a need in the art for a method and system for both automating pairing as well as making it dynamic, i.e., easily changing the pairing at any time.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated, relative to other elements, to help in improving an understanding of the embodiments of the present invention.